


Every Wedge Brings Us Closer

by Lefaym



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Drug Abuse, Enemy Lovers, Erik/Raven - Past Relationship, Holocaust Imagery, Hope, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Telepathic Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:29:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2118561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/pseuds/Lefaym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They can push each other away, but that won't keep them apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Wedge Brings Us Closer

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [pocky_slash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash) for the wonderful beta-job. This fic is way better off for her input. Any remaining flaws are entirely my own.
> 
> Please see tags for notes on content.

It starts small. Once a week, or maybe twice, brushing against Erik’s mind for an instant, just long enough to receive glimpses -- a cabin in Vermont, a street in San Francisco, a roadside diner that might be anywhere. 

Charles tells himself that it’s a necessity. Why else, after all, had he taken the helmet from the White House lawn, and locked it in a plastic vault deep beneath the school? He has no other way of knowing what Erik might do next, who he might hurt, or where the next betrayal will come from. A touch here and there, and who knows how many lives might be saved? 

And if it soon becomes more than a glimpse, if those instants become seconds, that occasionally drag on into minutes… his first duty is to the school, to keeping it safe. There are students again now. Charles has poured almost all his energy into finding the most vulnerable; those who cannot hide, those who have been cast out, and those whose powers could be used to maim, or to kill. If Erik were to find them first -- what would he do with a girl who can call lightning, or a boy who can kill with his eyes? Better to have them here in the school, safe; better to know, rather than hope, that Erik -- that _Magneto_ \-- hasn’t found them yet.

Better to lose himself occasionally in those bright parts of Erik’s mind, where Charles finds more memories of himself than he ever expected, than to remain ignorant of the dark flowing depths that threaten to melt away all that was ever good in the man.

***

Erik first becomes aware of Charles’ presence in his mind when he feels a tug -- or a push -- on a memory he’d almost managed to bury. Not something from his childhood. No, it’s more recent than that. But still, so long ago now. It’s hardly relevant anymore, that morning in DC: Charles looking at him across the pillows through heavy-lidded eyes, Charles smiling before pulled Erik in towards him. Charles’ breath warm in his mouth, and Charles’ hands in his hair.

But it’s not the memory -- or at least not _just_ the memory -- that that lets Erik know that Charles is inside him. It’s that for a moment, Erik can see himself through Charles’ eyes, and what he sees there makes him clench his fists until the steel flask next to him begins to rattle and distort. The man Charles sees is a man he never was -- a man he can never be. Charles, with the luxury of his high ideals, can afford to see Erik as something more than the weapon he was then, the weapon he still is.

Erik knows the price of affection, the price of love, and it’s not a price that mutantkind can afford to pay.

And yet, the next time he feels that familiar brush against his mind, Erik opens himself up to it, and lets Charles in.

***

Hank is beginning to suspect something, Charles knows. Not that he’s looked inside Hank’s head; Charles owes Hank far too much already, and the least he can do is allow the man some privacy. But even so, he can’t avoid the stray thoughts that fall from Hank’s mind, and he can’t pretend he doesn’t see the way that Hank sighs and turns away to hide his disappointment every time Charles spends slightly too long inside Cerebro. He can’t avoid the unending patience in Hank’s voice when he asks Charles if he needs a rest from his work, because surely a week without searching won’t do too much harm.

And every time Charles smiles and insists that he’s fine, even as he ignores the knot forming in his stomach.

It’s been useful, of course it has. Erik has been re-forming his Brotherhood, just as Charles has been rebuilding his school, and it won’t be long before they start planning something big, something that will get people killed. So far though, they’ve been restrained -- a midnight explosion at a warehouse full of Trask’s mutant detectors, some information about mutant genealogy that mysteriously disappeared from government offices -- no deaths yet, and very few injuries. It takes only moments to glean this information, and then Charles can sink into Erik’s mind.

There are some memories that he doesn’t seek out: Erik’s childhood, before the camps -- Charles won’t intrude on those sacred spaces without Erik’s blessing. And after, too. Charles knows about the terrible things that Erik has done, but he doesn’t want to see them. The months after Cuba, and the ten long years of confinement; no, that will only lead to madness.

Instead, Charles draws on the shared spaces in their minds, where Erik’s breath is hot on his neck, where they spend entire afternoons over a single game of chess, where they fall into bed so easily, it seems like nothing could ever draw them apart. Charles finds the places where Erik’s memories mirror his own, and pulls them both in.

* * *

All too frequently now, Erik wakes with images of Charles in his head. Sometimes it’s not even Charles doing it; sometimes Erik retreats of his own accord into those few short, endless months when he’d been foolish enough to believe that Charles would stand by him as he fought for their people. Sometimes he can almost feel Charles’ hands on his skin.

Erik tries not to linger on the hollow that forms in his chest whenever he feels Charles break the connection between them. He tries not to hope that Charles will find him while he’s asleep, and bring some relief from the dreams that plague him. He tries not to feel warm, whenever he remembers the heat of Charles’ body against his own.

And then it starts affecting him in other ways: the Brotherhood tracks down a defrocked minister in Georgia, rumoured to be behind a spate of anti-mutant propaganda. With a flick of Toad’s tongue, the man lies sobbing and shaking on the ground, begging them with garbled words to let him live, telling them he’s sorry as saliva runs down his chin. Erik stands over him, hands splayed wide, and a kitchen knife hovers above the man’s right eyeball. Erik lifts one arm, preparing to send the blade into the man’s brain, and--

\--knife comes down to the side, barely nicking the man’s ear as it pierces the ground beside him.

“He’s too pathetic to kill,” Erik growls, turning away, and taking the Brotherhood with him.

The next day, the preacher is on the news, calling for death to all mutants. That is when Erik knows this has to end.

When Charles finds him again, Erik is ready.

* * *

Charles is tired; bone-weary doesn’t even come close. 

He’d found Alison earlier in the year, and contacted her parents days later. A few more months, they’d asked, a few more months to have their daughter at home before she went away to this strange school for talented children that they didn’t quite understand. Charles had considered using his powers to convince them that she should go now, but he’s not in the business of tearing children from their parents. Gardendale was barely more than a hundred miles from North Salem, after all, and the girl’s powers had only just begun to take form; she could transform sound into weak beams of light, but she was hardly a danger to herself or anyone else.

And then late last night, a phone call from Alison’s desperate mother. A gang of thugs, fired up by a preacher on TV, coming for their daughter after her dazzling performance at the middle school roller disco had raised suspicions. He, Hank and Alex had barely made it before they got their hands on her.

Now, with the first light of the morning streaming in through the windows, Charles knows he should rest. It's not rest that he wants, though -- he wants solace. He makes his way to Cerebro, not even pretending, this time, that he has any motive but his own selfish desires. He blocks out all the noise from the rest of the world, all the pain and all the joy, and sends his mind directly to Erik.

Charles wants to slip into their first night together. He wants to see the fierce jubilation in Erik’s eyes as their plans to gather mutants and make a better world took shape. He wants to see himself giddy after his first time in Cerebro. He wants to feel Erik’s shocked thrill the moment that Charles had moved in to press their mouths together, and he wants to remember the way they'd lain tangled together afterwards, sweaty and laughing, hardly daring to believe what they'd found in each other.

But instead--

Instead--

Charles sees himself moving in towards Erik, and suddenly he is Erik instead, and he's leaning into Raven, blue and more stunningly beautiful than Charles remembers. He is Erik as he kisses her, because she needs this, she needs to know that Charles has been holding her back, and because Erik has started to suspect that Charles is holding him back too, holding him back from Shaw and from a world where mutants can take their rightful place without fear.

He sees Raven reaching for Erik after Cuba, and he sees them holding each other a hundred times in the year that follows, proving to each other that they didn't need Charles, that they had never needed him. And he sees Erik, feels Erik, _is_ Erik as he raises a pistol in Paris, with every intention of sending a bullet into Raven's head, because the regret he feels for what he'd had with her, and for what he's found again in these past few hours with Charles, is nothing compared to what their people will face if she is allowed to live.

Charles reaches up and rips Cerebro from his head.

* * *

A blade of light sears through Erik’s head as the connection between them is severed. For a moment, he sees Charles screaming as he breaks their link too quickly; Charles falling from his chair--

\--and then nothing.

Three hours later, Erik is still shaking.

* * *

For the first time in over a year, Charles tightens a tourniquet around his arm and injects the serum into his veins. 

Their concern is too much. The students and the staff have all heard by now that the Professor had a turn, that he had lain helpless for hours before Dr. McCoy found him. They project their love, their fear, with such force that Charles has no need to breach their minds to feel it. Hank is the worst of all, a torrent of pity rolling off him, and underneath that, a hint of betrayal, a bitter line between them.

Barely an hour passes before Charles realises what a fool he’s been. As the thoughts around him fade, the impression left by Erik’s memories grows sharper. It’s not seeing him with Raven that hurts now, at least not much. It’s that Erik barely even seems to notice that he is torn in two every time he chooses to toss someone away; Erik hardly seems to believe that he has a choice anymore.

If Charles’ legs weren’t weak from underuse, he would cross the room to find the bottle of Scotch hidden in his closet. But his atrophied muscles will not support him, and he lacks the willpower, right now, to lift himself into his chair.

Instead, Charles reaches into the bedside drawer, where he keeps the postcards that Raven has sent him these last eighteen months. For a moment, he wishes that he hadn’t renewed his promise, that he was free to seek her thoughts, but he forces that pang of regret to the bottom of his mind. He has to trust her, he’d sworn that he’d trust her, and he won’t let her down again. Charles runs his fingers over Raven’s sprawling letters, and closes his eyes.

There had been hope for her; she hadn’t been lost.

He tries to believe that there is hope for Erik too.

* * *

For two weeks, Erik’s mind is clear.

He focuses his attention on building new headquarters for the Brotherhood, and establishing bolt-holes everywhere from Lapland to Antarctica. Even Charles will find it difficult to locate all of Erik’s pawns, and besides, the day may come when the mighty Professor and his X-Men are forced to seek sanctuary with the Brotherhood (and perhaps on that day, Charles will see what Erik has been striving for all along, and they can stand side-by-side at last).

Erik barely follows the news while he’s abroad, he can’t follow it in most of the places he goes, but the day after he returns to the US, almost the first thing that catches his eye is a news report about anti-mutant protests in New York state. A group calling themselves Friends of Humanity had come to Gardendale from across the country, drawn there by claims that mutants had abducted a child from the town fourteen days ago; the mutants had twisted her to their ways, brainwashed her parents, seduced her into corruption.

The crowd doesn’t seem to have turned violent yet, but Erik understands hatred, and he know that it won’t be long. And once the crowd turns -- how long before someone makes the connection between mutants and the fancy secretive school barely an hour’s drive away? Oh, Charles will have his defenses, to be sure, but how far will he let these stupid humans go before he fights back?

Erik doesn’t waste the time it would take to gather the Brotherhood around him. He sets off on his own, determined to show these idiots that one mutant alone is worth a hundred humans and more. 

* * *

In a perverse way, Charles has almost enjoyed his week in Gardendale. It’s not that he takes any pleasure in the sad hatred that thrives amongst the Friends of Humanity, but there’s a quiet relief in his distance from Cerebro and the pressures of the school. A relief to be alone in this little house, where he can take care of himself, where he doesn’t meet memories at every turn.

It won’t last much longer -- Charles can tell that the crowd’s rage will burn itself out soon. In the meantime, it’s been easy enough to move through their minds, calming them ever so slightly when they come too close to violence, planting suggestions so subtly that there’s no chance of raising suspicion. In a few days, he’ll begin stirring up thoughts of home and family in the misguided souls who’ve come here thinking that their anger is enough to force evolution backwards; the crowd will disperse, and the newsreels will lie forgotten in a basement while the rest of humanity moves on.

The noise from the crowd ebbs, and Charles allows his mind to retreat. He lets his eyes fall shut, and he drifts into a doze moments before a wave of fear crashes over him.

* * *

It isn’t hard to spot the mob, gathered in a square outside the city hall; they’re quieter now than they’d been on television, but their signs still call for mutants to be catalogued, locked up, exterminated. 

Erik descends toward the centre of the crowd, stopping when he hovers just above them. He raises his arms, his senses calling out to every piece of metal in a hundred yard radius, and the crowd parts like the Red Sea beneath him. Every motor vehicle in sight rises high into the air before falling to the earth with a shuddering crash. Erik speaks.

“Hear me, humans. You think you can frighten mutantkind into submission. You are wrong. You think you can--”

Erik doesn’t sense the rock until it hits his temple. 

* * *

It takes Charles a full minute to focus, to send his mind into the crowd and see through their eyes.

He is just in time to see Erik tumble to the ground.

* * *

The mob roars around Erik, and he can do nothing. A glass bottle breaks over his shoulder; a boot kicks into his back. They are crying for blood, for his head, for death to all his kind.

In the distance, he can hear his mother screaming.

And suddenly, quiet. The mob freezes around him, and his mother blinks out of existence.

_Erik._

He draws a shuddering breath, and a name forms in his mind. _Charles._

_I need you to move for me, Erik. I can only hold them for so long._

Erik tries to stand, and the world spins. _I can’t._

 _You can._ He can feel Charles moving through him, and the world falls into focus. He can see a house in his mind, and all at once he knows the way.

Erik pulls himself to his feet and runs through the silent crowd.

* * *

Charles manages to hold them until Erik has left the square. With a final burst of effort, he sends a final command to every man and woman present: _Go home._ There’s nothing subtle about it, and more than half of them will realise that they’ve been manipulated before the week is out, but for now they’re dropping their banners and placards and thinking of nothing but catching the first bus or train away from here. 

He folds over on himself when it’s done, but he forces himself to sit upright when he hears the front door unlock. When Erik steps into the living room, they both simply -- pause. 

Charles opens his mouth to speak, and then closes it again, because what is there to say to each other? What good are recriminations, when they can’t change what’s been done? What is the use of _I miss you_ , and _It doesn’t have to be this way_ , when those words won’t alter their paths?

A glimmer of intention falls from Erik’s mind; Erik is on the point of turning away and leaving, because there is no point to any of this, and--

“Wait.”

“What for?”

“I need to --” Charles raises a hand to his temple, then gestures towards Erik. “Your head -- I need to check -- you’re injured.”

Erik removes a glove and runs his fingers along the side of his head; he seems almost surprised when they come away bloody. “I’m fine.”

“Erik -- please.” Charles curses himself for the catch in his voice, and for a moment Charles is sure that Erik is going to walk away regardless, but then something changes. Erik’s intentions _shift_ , and Charles feels a twist that might be apprehension or relief shoot through his abdomen.

Erik crosses the room slowly, and after a moment’s hesitation he kneels in front of Charles, bringing his face within reach. Charles uses the sleeve of his sweater to wipe away the remaining blood, while Erik looks at him, face expressionless.

“I’ll need to --” Charles leans forwards and raises his fingertips to Erik’s temples.

“Go ahead.”

Charles lets himself flow into Erik’s mind, and although he expects it, it’s hard not to gasp at how sharp everything is when there is physical contact between them; blurred edges are now vivid, faint impressions are clear and focused, and behind it all is Erik, more jagged and torn and more _real_ than Charles had allowed himself to remember. 

For a moment Charles is adrift, tumbling through currents of sensation and memory, but he forces himself to pull back. He waits on the surface of Erik’s consciousness until he can go more carefully, feeling for the dull blue-tinged thoughts that mean concussion and the purple-brown ones that mean something worse. Charles smooths over shaken pathways where he finds them, but there doesn’t seem to be any damage that won’t heal on its own.

And Charles can’t do this, he can’t, without allowing himself to see everything: the people Erik has killed, the lovers he’s had, the grief and guilt that burns him, and the soft golden fires that Erik doesn’t seem -- or want -- to know about. Torture, loss too great for words; safety, half-remembered, from before words even existed. Ten years without touch; ten minutes in Paris with Charles, dark and desperate, knowing that he’s about to throw everything away. _Everything_ , Charles had told him once, but he’s spent such a long time avoiding everything that he’d forgotten what it means.

Charles sees himself and Erik in a room together, in a little house in Gardendale; Erik is trembling, leaning in, pulling Charles close. Erik’s hands are twisting in Charles’ hair -- Erik is kissing him. 

And Charles is kissing him back.

* * * 

_Charles, Charles, Charles._ Erik chants the name in his head, and he knows Charles can hear him. Erik wishes he could hide the edge of despair to his thoughts. He wishes he could forget that Charles will let him go again, that Charles always lets him go. But right now Charles is inside him so completely that Erik can’t hold back. He will regret this later, this weakness, and he knows that Charles will too; they will both go back to their lives, to their fight, and never feel as whole as they do right now.

“Erik, please,” says Charles, “Please, Erik, please,” and a thousand echoes fall through Erik’s mind: _Please don’t go_ and _Please change_ and _Please don’t let this end_. Erik wants to say, “I won’t, I will, I won’t,” but he can’t, so he gathers Charles in closer, and lifts him from his chair. 

Charles projects an image: a small bedroom, just off the hall, and Erik’s chest tightens, thinking of how long it’s been since they’ve shared a bed. By the time Erik has taken them both there, Charles’ mouth is on his neck, just above his collar, and it’s almost torture to set him down, breaking all physical contact for the few seconds it takes Erik to remove his metallic costume. 

Charles seems to feel the lack of touch as keenly as Erik does; as soon as Erik is undressed, Charles takes his hand and pulls him in. Erik holds back just long enough to remove Charles’ jeans, the metal in Charles’ fly, belt, pocket-studs is just enough that they come away without too much trouble, and then Erik straddles him, letting Charles pull him down. Their mouths find each other again, and Charles unleashes a new flood of sensation into Erik’s consciousness. Erik can feel his own hands against Charles’ chest, as he unbuttons his shirt, he can feel the way that every one of his kisses sends a jolt through Charles’ body.

Erik knows that Charles is aware of everything that he is feeling too, the flush under his skin, the way that every point of contact between them seems magnified a thousandfold, the growing urgency in his groin pushing him on, drowning out the aches and bruises from earlier. And Charles must be able to feel the knot forming in his chest, the flashes of heat that drive his fingernails into Charles’ arms, because they could have this, they wouldn’t have to give it up, if only Charles would--

Charles bites down on Erik’s shoulder, hard enough to make him cry out, and another image falls into Erik’s mind, so laden with desire that everything else falls away. Suddenly, all he knows is that Charles wants Erik inside him, he wants Erik to turn him over and fuck him until they’re both too incoherent for thought. He wants Erik -- he wants _Erik_ \-- and nothing else matters.

* * *

Afterwards, they lie tangled together on top of the sheets. Charles rolls himself onto his back, and Erik’s head falls against his chest. After a moment, Charles realises that he can hear his own heartbeat through Erik’s ears.

All at once it’s too much, being this close, because there’s no room for denial here, no room to pretend that he can just let this go, that two weeks away from Cerebro would make him stop reaching out, stop _loving_ him--

For the first time since Erik knelt in front of him, Charles releases his link to Erik’s mind.

A dry sob erupts from Erik’s throat, and Charles finds himself swallowing, blinking back tears. He knows, even without the link between them, that if he asked now, Erik would stay with him. Erik would come back to the school, back to his bed, back to the game they’d left half-played all those years ago. Erik would come back, and Hank would leave, and Charles would spend all his spare hours wondering, _How long?_

How long before Erik decides that there is no choice anymore, that someone has to be sacrificed? How long before one life or thousands of them is the price that Erik places on survival?

Charles runs a hand through Erik’s hair. He lingers at the base of his skull, and allows his fingers to trace the line of Erik’s jaw. Then he reaches out with his power again, and seizes Erik’s mind.

Thirty seconds later, Charles’ chair is beside the bed, and Erik is asleep.

* * *

When Erik wakes, he is alone. The bed is cold, and every part of him seems to ache, as though he’s been torn apart and sewn back together again.

On the table by the bed, he finds a note:

_I am sorry, old friend._

* * *

Two days later, Charles returns to Cerebro. 

He finds two mutant children, newly come into their powers, and checks in on three more who are still safe enough living at home. He doesn’t search for Erik.

At least, not this time.


End file.
